A Brief History On June 22, 1969, the Cuyahoga River near downtown Cleveland, Ohio caught fire, sparking a story in Time Magazine and becoming the symbol for the ecology movement. Nature and mankind have worked separately or together throughout history to create environmental disasters. Here we list 10 of the more spectacular ones, the order of which is the ones we find most entertaining. Digging Deeper 10. Leaded Fuel, 1920’s-1970’s. Discovered to be an effective anti-knock compound for gasoline by Charles Kettering and Tom Midgely in 1921, the compound tetraethyl lead made by Dupont was necessary for engines to operate at higher compression, thus…
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A Brief History On June 14, 2016, Central Florida was rocked by its third horrific event within the past few days when an alligator snatched a 2 year old boy wading in shallow water at a Disney resort. Compounding the horror, the boy’s father tried to pull the child from the giant reptile, but the alligator was too strong, and pulled the child underwater where the boy was drowned. Digging Deeper This horror comes on the heels of the shooting death of internet and Voice singing sensation Christina Grimmie on June 11 in Orlando and the Pulse nightclub massacre on…
A Brief History On June 7, 1991, a sleepy volcano on the Philippine island of Luzon experienced an explosion that sent an ash cloud 4.3 miles high. After months of activity indicating an eruption was imminent, the first eruption started on June 3, but the first big explosion with magma flow happened on June 7. Digging Deeper By this time, authorities had been evacuating the population for several miles around the volcano, increasing the area evacuated twice to a radius of about 25 miles. Many residents had started leaving of their own accord prior to official evacuations. (About 350,000 people…
A Brief History On May 28, 1934, the famous Dionne Quints (quintuplets) were born in an unincorporated rural area of Ontario, Canada, making them instant celebrities. Other births have also captured the imagination of the public, and here we list 10 of the most famous births. Digging Deeper 10. Prince William, 1982. The world was in love with Princess Diana, so when the Princess of Wales gave birth to William, a healthy future King of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, many people in the vast former British Empire celebrated. For some reason, many in the United States were captivated…
A Brief History On May 20, 1983, two separate groups of researchers published their research that indicated AIDS was caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus in Science Magazine. AIDS, Auto-immunodeficiency Syndrome, had been discovered in the United States first in 1981. Digging Deeper Instead of widespread concern and alarm, the American public reacted largely with scorn, thinking that the AIDS problem was limited to homosexuals and drug addicts, making up acronyms such as GRID (Gay Related Immune Deficiency), 4H Disease (for Haitians, Homosexuals, Hemophiliacs and Heroin), and referring to AIDS as “Anally Injected Death Syndrome.” As more people were identified…